Wednesday, January 13, 2010

What good is cake you have but never eat?

Why didn't anyone tell me about Grey Gardens? What planet have I been on? "You had two hands; you could have modeled gloves."

You see, this is real life. These are two of Jackie Onasis's relatives, specifically her aunt and her cousin. In 1975 a film was made of the mother/daughter pair living together in their collapsing mansion in the East Hamptons with their 52 cats.

Then in 2006 it became a musical on Broadway. According to Wikipedia: In the first act, which takes place in 1941, Little Edie is 24 and Big Edie is 47; in the second act, taking place in 1973, Little Edie is 56 and Big Edie is 79.

In the early scene Joseph Kennedy, the Kennedy brother who died in WWII, appears as Little Edie's fiance. The Bouvier sisters, Jacqueline and Lee, appear as children in the flashback sections. Christine Ebersole plays both Big Edie in the flashbacks and Little Edie in 1973. Mary Louise Wilson is Big Edie as an old woman.

The music reminds me of Broadway music from the 40s, and the singing is composed like conversation with a lot of that thing Wagner said never happened--people talking at the same time, interrupting each other, but with nothing that resembles a duet. The women quarrel. I suppose it couldn't be an opera because when they aren't singing they're shouting at one another.

I got this from House of Opera. It's filmed from someone's phone, I think. I confess that I love it madly.